


One Man's Trash

by CameoAmalthea



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: A.I. - Freeform, M/M, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:58:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4568829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CameoAmalthea/pseuds/CameoAmalthea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Axel finds an robot in the dumpster and decides to take it home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Man's Trash

**Author's Note:**

> Rewrite/expansion of my fic Worthless Things.

The windshield wipers were beating furiously, but the rain was falling faster than they could wipe the glass clear. Axel slowed his speed, wondering if he should just pull over and wait it out. Lightning flashed and for a second the night was bathed in a violet glow, and then it was dark again as thunder almost instantly rang out.

By the time Axel reached his apartment the rain had slowed but streetlights still seemed muted and dull. Of course, all the close parking was taken. He had to park a few blocks down and walk. He pulled his long leather coat closer around himself as he began his trudge towards home, keeping his eyes down. The rain finally comes to stop as he passed an alleyway and he saw a stream of red mixing with puddles.

Axel turned towards the alley. There, slumped against a practically overflowing dumpster, was a body drenched in blood and definitely not moving. Without even thinking Axel ran to help, pulling out his phone for light and to call 911. Before he made the call he got a better look and swore.

Not a body: a robot. Specifically, it was a particularly life-like bot in the shape of blonde haired teenage boy. The unit was heavily damaged, enough for wires to show, and good thing too. Axel would have probably gotten an earful for wasting time calling about some doll, especially on a night like this when there were probably plenty of actual emergencies that needed attention.

“Fucking bots,” he swore under his breath. Why the hell did they make them bleed? Pain sensors were one thing, didn’t want your toy damaging itself, but why make it look hurt? To alert the owners when they were being too rough? Maybe it was just a way for designers to show off how lifelike they would make the things?

Whatever the reason it was fucking stupid to have ‘em bleed. Axel doubted he was the first person to mistake a damaged bot for an injured person. Worse, what if someone was actually injured and wound up bleeding out on the street because no one bothered to check if they were human and get help. Icky line of thought; Axel tried to push it away. Most people would check, right? They just wouldn’t get freaked out until they were sure it was actually somebody.

This wasn’t somebody, and really he should have just left it. It was just broken trash. Still it seemed sad somehow, just to leave it, and it had been a high-end model once. Only the high-end models were life like enough to bleed if you cut them and bruised if you hit them. At the very least, the thing might have some parts worth salvaging for resale.

X

Once he’d hauled the thing back to his apartment he laid it out on the kitchen floor so the ‘blood’ wouldn’t get on the carpet. He doubted it would stain, after all, the stuff wasn’t really blood, but if there was going to be a mess it would be easier to clean off the tile, and if he opened the bot up there was definitely going to be a mess.

Maybe that was the reason behind the blood, discourage tampering, make it feel too macabre to peel back the skin. Encourage customers to get replacement parts from licensed manufacturers only, and have repairs done at official dealers.

Axel had never owned a bot himself or really wanted one for that matter. Despite being a technical wizard and one hell of a mechanic, Axel had never really liked the things really. He could admire the mechanics, sure, but when it came right down to it bots were creepy and existed to either take jobs or give pathetic people a substitute for actual relationships, dream dolls to fulfill every fantasy.

But as much as Axel disliked the concept of bots, he had to admit the thing was a pretty nice piece of work. Even soaked and beaten you could tell it was pretty. As he worked to clean the unit up and assess the damage, Axel wondered what it had been for- it was small, and soft featured, but a bit old to be a child-surrogate. Child-surrogate was what they called the dolls for wannabe parents who couldn’t afford real kids or preferred children that didn’t grow up and could be turned off when you got tried of parenting. People filled their lives with all sorts of games, they played at roles and loving and being loved.

But yeah, too old to be a kid-bot. “Parents” liked them young, still cute and innocent. No one would pay to have a pretend teenager. So maybe it was just made to look androgynous, the pretty sort of shape between male and female, soft features that made him look young for a guy. But what role was it supposed to play, pretend boyfriend for a teenage girl, baby-sitter for some couple with actual brats? And who had done all this damage?

He hoped it hadn’t been designed for abuse. That was too sick to even think about, even if there was no “real victim” acting out those kind of urges on anything that could feel pain was too fucked up for words. Axel chose to think of other explanations.

Maybe it had broken and the owner decided to take out their frustration on the A.I. Hit it until it worked again like an old radio, then stab it when it refused to turn on? Maybe it hadn’t been so bad when it had been dumped but some kids had found it and decided to mess around with it, ‘did you know some A.I.’s bleed? Really? Yeah, let’s check it out?' Kids trashed a lot of things just for the hell of it.

He found a serial number dating the unit by about ten years. That made it likely the thing had simply broken or had been thrown out. Once tech was obsolete no one wanted it. This guy had been top of the line when it was new so whoever had owned it could afford cutting edge tech, making it pretty easy to toss this aside for a new model. Maybe the original owner had sold it and who’d ever dumped it had bought it used years ago and had finally gotten rid of it.

“Ten years ago you were priceless, and now you’re garbage,” mused Axel. “Nothing’s built to last anymore. No more antiques or classics, an outdated computer or phone was junk and it was the same for bots.

And why not? Every new edition made old tech pretty much worthless. A broken machine, smash it and toss it. But seeing an old A.I. like this bothered him, and not just wondering if it had been conscious with its pain sensors on when this had happened.

A.I. were meant to make you happy, meant to be loved. He’d never loved his textbooks, far from it for certain classes. An old computer was just useless junk; especially if the thing was so far gone you couldn’t retrieve your data. Nothing wrong with destroying worthless things you never really cared about.

“Whoever did this to you thought you were pretty worthless.” And maybe he was and Axel was wasting his time and getting his apartment messy for nothing. He ought to drag the thing back to the dumpster. Let it be incinerated or torn apart and recycled. No sense holding on to something no one wanted.

Maybe because it looked so human he wanted to help it. Pick up the broken thing and cradle it. Take care of it, worthless or not, it needed someone there, even if it was just a lie. “Well don’t you worry,” he said, “I think I can get you working again.”

X

Axel set to work fixing the bot and told himself he was stupid for being sentimental about a piece of junk. He shouldn’t do this out of concern, it was just a machine but either way it was fun just to see if he could fix it. He’d always liked machines and fixing up things that had broken down. He didn’t know much about A.I., but fortunately the ‘brain’ was more or less intact, aside from the memory. Now that bit looked pretty fried.

He wasn’t surprised. It was a pretty common issue with bots, especially ones designed to imprint. If they were sold or separated from their owners a lot of them just couldn’t function anymore so their memories wiped themselves to keep the whole thing from crashing. Extreme pain had the same results. It almost as if the robots could experience trauma and tried to protect themselves from it by wiping knowledge that anything bad had ever happened at all. Whatever had happened to this guy Axel could understand not wanting to remember.

Of course, Axel was human. Could a robot really experience psychological pain? They were just dolls. They mimicked human behaviors. They couldn’t really feel, just respond to stimulus. Pain input means take your hand off the stove, not develop a phobia of burns, not for a machine.

“All right,” said Axel. “Let’s see if you can run.” He flipped the switch and waited for the robot to boot up.

After a few moment the robot sat up and opened his eyes. He blinked slowly, just starring. He had the bluest eyes Axel had ever seen. Well, he was designed to be someone’s idea of perfect, of course his eyes would be impossibly pretty.

Axel knelt down in front of him. “Hello?” he said, waving at the boy. “Can you hear me?”

The robot looked at him, but said nothing.

“Can you speak?” he asked. “You’re unit R-O-X-A-S -0-1-3, ringing any bells?”

No response, guess that meant no. The thing's memory was blank with a capital B. At least it seemed somewhat responsive.

“All right then,” said Axel, “I’m gonna call you… Roxas. How about that?”

“Roxas,” the boy repeated slowly.

“Yup, that’s you,” said Axel, “and I’m Axel. Can you remember that, Axel?”

“Ax-ess?” asked the boy.

“El,” he repeated. “Axel.”

“Axel!” said the boy, excitedly a smile coming to his face.

“You got it,” he said. “So you can learn!” Axel stood and offered ‘Roxas’ his hand but the boy did not take it immediately. Instead he kept staring, like he had no idea what on earth the gesture meant or what he was supposed to do. “Take my hand. I’ll help you stand up. Can you stand up?”

Roxas nodded and did as he was told, allowing Axel to help him to his feet.

“Looks like I’ll be baby sitting a zombie robot for a while,” he said, “a zombot?” He laughed at his own joke. Roxas just looked at him. Humor was probably another concept they’d have to work on, along with everything else. What was he getting himself into?

All the same, watching Roxas look around the room, staring at everything like it was the first time was kinda cute and he couldn’t help but smile. Outside the rain had started to fall again. Roxas went to the window and watched the droplet’s fall for a moment before putting his hand to the glass.

“Cold,” he said.

“That’s right,” said Axel, “it’s cold outside and wet, but don’t worry. You’re safe and warm in here and you’re going to stay that way.”  
Roxas turned to him and took his hand. “Warm,” he repeated. “Safe.”

“Yeah,” said Axel. Giving him a smile. Any thought of taking him apart for scraps or selling him had vanished. Axel was glad he hadn’t left the bot in that dumpster. He didn’t like the idea of Roxas end up on a conveyer belt to a trash compacter with all the other worthless things. “Don’t worry Roxas,” Axel told him.  
“I’m going to keep you.”


End file.
